John Maginnis: Shutdown could not happen in Louisiana

It could not happen here, this government shutdown thing. Under similar circumstances in the Louisiana House of Representatives, regardless of how members voted, they would at least vote.

The impasse over the budget resolution and GOP attempts to defund the Affordable Care Act soon will be followed by another face-off over raising the debt ceiling. Assuming, hoping, that both matters are resolved sometime before Halloween, a deeper problem will remain. Despite the widespread frustration of the people, the current gridlock is not the fault of tea party Republicans, or the president and the Democrats, or of everyone failing to get along. Rather, the responsibility for this irresponsibility gets down to Speaker John Boehner, both as a person and an institution, who has prevented the House from voting and letting the will of the majority prevail. If the partisan roles were reversed, the Democrat who would be speaker would be as much at fault.

The U.S. Constitution barely mentions the office (other than to say the House may "choose a speaker"), but over the years the speaker of the House has gained the power to decide which legislation gets voted on. But such discretion, mainly for the sake of managing the House agenda, was not intended to block crucial budget votes on keeping the government operating. Compounding that assumed power, this speaker has chosen to invoke the "Hastert Rule," named for former Speaker Dennis Hastert, to bring up no legislation that is not supported by a "majority of the majority," even if the instrument is supported by a bipartisan majority, as is the continuing budget resolution. Hastert, currently a lobbyist and diving to get out of the line of fire, denies ever making such a rule. He said his "preference," in order to maintain Republican policy, was to try not to use the votes of Democrats to pass legislation that only a minority of Republicans supported.

Rule or not, Boehner's stance is rooted in large part in self-preservation, for he figures he won't be speaker for long if he lets a bipartisan majority overcome a majority of his Republican colleagues, who are demanding that Democrats negotiate concessions on Obamacare. That consideration may loom large for Boehner, but why is it our problem? It demeans the institution for its leader to operate like a party hack, just as former Democratic speakers have when it was their turn. This is the people's House, not some party's.

A government shutdown, irresponsible as it is, at least would be constitutionally legitimate in the case of a majority of the House voting the opposite of a majority in the Senate. The constitution offers no solution to that standoff. But for a leader of one house to stop that body from voting, because most of his or her party won't like the outcome, enshrines partisanship and violates the spirit of our democratic republic.

For suppressing the will of the elected majority, the Hastert "don't call it a rule" Rule is matched only by the Senate's filibuster rule. The constitution already grants leavening powers to the upper chamber, where Wyoming carries the same weight as New York. Why does it also need a 60-vote bar before a vote is called on a controversial measure? The rationale for the rule, which only evolved recently, is to avoid the whipsaw effect of massive and opposite legislation being passed whenever a new party takes power.

Both the majority-of-the-majority rule in the House and super-majority rule in the Senate seem meant to protect party power, but they also wildly overstate the importance of both bodies within the three branches of government. Whatever legislation the Congress passes, the president can veto and the courts can strike it down if it goes too far, not to mention that the voters can pass judgment and settle scores every two years.

Members of both parties, not just the leaders, should come together to get rid of this partisan misrule. As a simple "outside the Beltway" view, that's not likely to happen, just as Capitol Hill's current crisis of the absurd is bound to happen again.

But at least it's not going to happen here, where one can take comfort that in the Louisiana Legislature, the majority still has a say, even if the governor rules.

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John Maginnis: Shutdown could not happen in Louisiana

It could not happen here, this government shutdown thing. Under similar circumstances in the Louisiana House of Representatives, regardless of how members voted, they would at least vote.

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